Stained Lips, Sealed Tongue
by eosdawnaurora
Summary: Sai and Sakura knew it would never work, but they enjoyed each other while it lasted. A 30 Kisses set. Various ratings. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.
1. Pose

Note: Written for my 30 kisses set prompt #1 - Look Over Here

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"Try not to touch anything," Sai said, as he led Sakura in, flicking on the lights. "You can sit over there." The room smelled slightly of old paper and the clove oil that went into polishing weapons along with something dry and chemical like bleach. It wasn't unpleasant, but gave her the sense of a place of work, more than a comfortable home.

She smoothed her skirt as her eyes adjusted and she moved to sit on the edge of the squat, blocky leather chair he directed her to. It was next to a window, which was shuttered at the moment. Sakura licked her lips and watched him take off his jacket and hang it up in the narrow closet by the front door.

This was the first time she'd been so deep into his apartment, which doubled as his studio. It was very tidy, but every surface was in use in some fashion. The table nearby held a neat stack of sketchbooks, a rack with several different sized scrolls, and two brush holders crammed full of brushes, ordered by size and length.

She wondered if he was in the middle of a project, seeing lengths of silk with elaborate, loose calligraphy dancing down them, draping the larger table near his tiny kitchen.

It was odd, too, how a room could be so full of objects and still look somewhat sterile and neutral. None of the pictures he had on his walls were of people or animals like the ones he used in his ink jutsus; only things - stark landscapes, bold still-life drawings, calligraphy. Yet she had asked him to do a portrait.

He could have said no, if he didn't like drawing people. She knew he'd done those pictures of himself with his brother, so maybe it wasn't that.

She watched him set up in silence, choosing his materials with care as he picked through several drawers, and then to a wide, low cabinet lined with horizontal shelves that held the paper he was going to use as a ground for the work.

Sai clipped the large sheet of green-tinged paper he chose to a board, and then carried it over to where she was sitting, dragging a stool behind him. He set the board on top of the stool and went back to get the rest of his materials, including a small tray to rest the wooden box of pastels and a small assortment of pencils on.

He came over to where she was, and opened the window behind her, letting sunlight pour into the room and over them both. The corner of his mouth turned up infinitesimally. This close she caught the acrid scent of ink and sweat and again more faintly, the nose-tingling spice of cloves, from the air as he passed.

"Do you think you can sit still?" he asked, looming over her, examining her face. He touched her cheek, and it wasn't the first time that she was surprised that his fingers weren't cold.

"I don't know, I've never done something like this. How long does it take?" She was already feeling skittish and wanted to squirm.

He scratched his chin, a gesture she suspected he'd picked up from Kakashi. "Hmm. Maybe an hour. Maybe less. I'm fast, but I don't usually do color."

She nodded, thinking that it couldn't be too difficult. As long as he didn't say anything obnoxious. It was a good thing she didn't have to hold her breath. "I can do it. How do you want me to sit?"

"Here, turn your body like this." He put his hands on her shoulders gently guiding her. "Cross your legs at the ankle, and lean back on your hands. Now look over here, and pick a spot to stare at." She knew he meant over his shoulder, but his face was so close, really she was looking at his mouth, and remembering how soft his lips could be.

"Okay." She was going to be staring at a blank portion of the wood paneling, which had a small knot right in the middle. Sakura was glad she couldn't see a clock.

"Good. Now don't move. With the way the light's hitting you, I may be able to fool the viewer into thinking that you're not a hag."

Blood rushed into her face, eyes snapping wide, her body tensing, as her short nails dug into the leather of her seat. Watching Sai's back, she struggled not to shift or give in to the temptation to rip his spine out through his throat.

Sakura tried to calm herself, as he propped his drawing board up, bracing it against his thighs. His expression was almost blank, but she could see the barest flush to his cheeks, the tiniest curve to his mouth. She was starting to think he got off on provoking her fury.

He picked up a pencil to start laying out the baselines, and licking the point, he leaned over and tapped the other end beneath her chin. "Up a little. So, how are you planning to pay me for this?"

"I won't murder you in your sleep," she growled, but didn't shift from her pose.

Sai gave her a small, delicate smile as he set down the pencil and chose a pastel. "Oh, you're staying the night?"

She hadn't meant for him to take it that way, but - "Do you want me to?"

"If I say yes, will you let me draw you with your shirt off?"

"Ask me again when I see what I'm paying for," she said, though she still intended to take him up on his invitation.


	2. The Game

Written for my 30_kisses set prompt #2 - News, letter. I do not own Naruto.

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Sai looked up from his sketchbook as a familiar shadow fell across his back and cut across the page.

"Wanna see what I've got?," Sakura said, grinning like she'd caught some of whatever affliction it was, that made Naruto smile all the time for no reason.

Lowering his brush half-heartedly, and glancing across the unmown field where he had been studying the movement of the wind through the grass, and the little finches that popped up from it every now and then, he watched as she unrolled an ornate scroll and dangled the contents in front of him.

His eyes widened. "You made Jounin," he said.

All the requisite seals decorated the lower half of the document. The Hokage, the Daimyo, the village council, and three other experienced Jounin - including that of one Hatake Kakashi - all of them had vouched for her abilities.

"Are you surprised?" Sakura's face fell a little, and his heart galloped, while he tried to form words that could possibly describe another emotion that had unearthed itself unexpected and raw in front of him.

He shook his head, looking up at her with a small, careful smile. "I had an odd feeling. I'm not surprised though," he said.

Her eyebrow quirked up, as she came around from behind him to sit next to him on the grass. "An odd feeling? Like what?"

"In my chest. It spread out from the middle. A warm feeling."

Sakura smiled and laughed. "Are you proud of me?"

"Maybe. Not as much as Kakashi, I'm sure." He pointed at the henohenomoheji drawn under Kakashi's seal. "I doubt Naruto will get that on his, even if he ever makes Jounin."

"The only reason he isn't, is that he screws up the paperwork every time he applies," Sakura said, her eyes lingering on the silly little face in the midst of the other more weighty signets as she rolled up the scroll.

"I suppose having the capacity to navigate red tape is as much of a skill as anything else a shinobi could be tested on. Though he seems to have a special ability to get around such formalities most of the time," he said, touching his brush to the paper again.

Sakura sighed. "I don't think Tsunade's going to crack on this. If he wants to be Hokage someday, he's going to have to play the game."

"Game?"

"You know, the one where you do things to make other people happy so they'll do things to make you happy," she explained. "Diplomacy, compromise, manipulation. Naruto's not really good at any one of those things."

That sounded familiar. He knew what the words meant, but as usual the context baffled him. "Oh. It sounds a little like when I have to guess what I did to make you angry."

Sakura had taught him a great deal through trial and error, though sometimes it could be painful. Pain was easier to handle than the confusion that interpersonal relations outside of Root presented him with. At least Sakura was direct and had become increasingly willing to give him the opportunity to explain himself. He should have kissed her sooner.

Laughing and leaning against his shoulder, her vivid pink hair brushed his cheek. "Almost. Mmm - there's another game we can play right now, that would make me very happy," Sakura said, tucking the scroll back into her pouch as she pushed his sketchbook down, until it was flat against his legs.

Sai went through his mental list of things that he knew pleased her and could apply to this situation. His cheeks reddened and he licked his lips and set his work aside. If he didn't move fast he was going to be on his back in the grass, and he'd have to wrestle her if he wanted to take the dominant position and 'win'. Though in these sort of intimate moments, there was never really a winner or a loser.

They both moved at the same time, but she had better leverage, managing to push him back and straddle him all in one smooth movement, knocking his breath out. "Say to me "Congratulations, Sakura-sempai.""

He looked up at her grinning face, his eyes narrowed almost to slits. Sempai indeed. He was two years older than she was, and had been out slitting throats, while she was still learning to throw a kunai straight. Yet she had become a Jounin first.

"Congratulations, Sakura-sempai," he said, his voice low and soft. "I'm going to kiss you."


	3. Extraction

Notes: For my 30_kisses set, prompt #3 - Jolt!

This one came from my need to see Sai take a hit for Sakura, since around the time they first met he nearly let her fall to her death. Also, I wanted to have them all as ANBU, so this is what you get. I do not own Naruto

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Slammed into from behind, all of the air rushed out of Sakura's lungs as another body pushed hers onto the hard, leaf-strewn ground, forcing her to drop her blood-slicked tanto. This was followed by the overhead rush of what looked and sounded like several quivers full of arrows, hissing by and thunking into the trees and soil around them.

"What the hell, Sai?" she growled, looking over her shoulder. His face was pressed hard into her back, masked, and she could only see his dark hair. She had a bad feeling again, after a night of them.

Whoever had gotten the intel, or at least whoever had written the briefing for this mission, handily left out about forty men and neglected to mention their leader was a tactician to rival Konoha's best. Small rogue border clans, with their old blood-feuds and occasional clever ideas had always plagued the Fire Country and its leaders. At first they had thought that was what they were dealing with.

These guys had to be pretty strong to kidnap the Daimyo's grandson in the first place, but when the abduction originally happened there was no indication that they had such a large force to back them up. They didn't look or act like a bunch of poorly outfitted, unskilled thugs, but they didn't have any clan or unit markings. It made her think they were hired soldiers, not a bunch of attention-seeking hooligans from the fringes.

Kakashi hadn't said anything when they'd first made contact, but if she had noticed there was something off about them, he'd probably already figured out their country of origin and who their grandmothers were.

It didn't change the fact that they were split up from the other half of their team. At some point, she and Sai had gotten caught in an environmental genjutsu, that Kakashi and Sasuke each with their Sharingan had been able to completely ignore. Now they were nowhere in sight.

"You were looking the wrong way, Hag," Sai said in a tightly controlled manner, which alerted her to the fact he was in a great deal of pain. She'd been trying to catch up with the others just like he had, it was dark and the other two men on their team weren't exactly known for leaving a trail. Kakashi should have noticed by now that they'd gone missing, and he wasn't here yet, which meant he was busy.

"Please don't tell me you're hit," she twisted to look over her shoulder better, and slipped off her mask and could see the shafts of two arrows sticking out of his white-armored back.

"I think one of them is through my lung," Sai gasped, his strained voice muffled by the red-striped animal mask.

_Shit._ "Up," she said. Sakura pulled herself out from under him quickly, and got a shoulder up under one of his arms. Moving as fast as she could supporting him, they searched for better cover. She could deal with this, but she was going to need more than a few seconds. Even more if the arrows were poisoned, or there was debris pushed into the wound.

High on an oak bough they hid, and Sai pulled out his ink jutsu scroll, lining out clones of them, along with six huge hastily-sketched lions, sending them off into the darkness. They were standing close, his hands on her shoulders, her back against the trunk, the dense leaves and branches near the treetop giving little room to maneuver. It wasn't much different from one of the positions they'd been in the night before, most of which was spent fucking on his apartment floor like it would be the last time.

Her blood ran cold, knowing how easily that could have come true. "Hold onto something, me, the tree, I don't care. I'm going to get those out. This is going to hurt." _A lot._

He made a noise of assent and gripped the branches behind her, his white-armored, black-gloved arms bracketing her head. She wanted to tell him to take his mask off, because it was unnerving trying to heal someone whose expression she couldn't monitor, but it was too damn dark anyway and she already knew she was going to hurt him more.

Sakura could feel and hear the enemy nin closing in, and wished she had some sort of clue where the hell Kakashi and Sasuke were. Her radio hadn't picked up their voices for almost ten minutes now - if either one of those two used lightning-based attacks, inevitably they shorted them out. Probably dealing with the big guy she'd seen or extracting the captive.

"The ink clones are down," Sai said. His whole body was shaking and his heart rate was up, as the pale green glow of her healing chakra sank into him. She worked the first arrow out, trying to heal the puncture wound as she drew it away from his flesh, past shirt and vest. This was going to eat a lot more of her energy than she liked, but she knew if it came down to it she'd find enough chakra to put up some sort of a fight; and if she could get Sai back in the action, so much the better.

Below, she heard running feet, unfamiliar voices and then shouting, then screams. The ear-scouring chirp of Raikiri was approaching fast. Sakura allowed herself a small sigh of relief, a white glow rushing beneath them and away as Kakashi streaked by, annihilating the enemy archers before the bastards knew what hit them.

She continued working on Sai, and felt Sasuke's presence before she saw or heard him in the branches below. "Almost done," she said, using extra care on the second arrow, which was between his right eighth and ninth ribs, definitely in his lower lung and possibly his liver.

Sai didn't faint when the second intact arrow scraped past his rib and out, followed by the debris and blood her chakra was pushing behind it, but he made some small noises into her shoulder she'd rather not hear again in this lifetime.

"What happened?" Sasuke's familiar cold voice from beneath them was vaguely accusatory. He was behind her on a lower branch, and she wasn't about to turn around.

"You two got too far ahead and we were caught in a genjutsu. Then we were ambushed. Sai was hit," she said, as vague as possible, as she finished the job. She didn't report back to Uchiha Sasuke. "Did you find the boy?"

"I'm carrying him. Kakashi's cleaning up the rest." Their orders had been very clear on how they were to deal with the kidnappers and anyone caught assisting them. Kakashi would probably keep one of them alive for questioning.

She made one last pass over Sai's back, glad she couldn't see the bloody rents in his armor, and hoping she'd been thorough enough that the scarring would be minimal. "Is the child going to need treatment, too?"

"I don't think so. He's drugged but not injured."

"I'll take a look at him in a moment." She moved to put her mask back in place, but Sai stopped her, catching her bloody-gloved hand. He slid aside his own mask, and pressed his mouth against hers long enough for her to taste copper and salt and then he jumped down, leaving her wide-eyed.

Frowning, she followed, seeing Sasuke's shadowy, blood-reeking form land next to Sai's. She couldn't help wondering if Sai had kissed her because Sasuke was watching, and tried to decide whether she should be irritated with him or not. She knew he wasn't beyond certain forms of male posturing, and it had had the distinct feeling of a display of possessiveness, over one of gratitude.

She didn't have time to think about it further. Kakashi appeared in front of them, his wolf mask spattered liberally with gore, along with the rest of his uniform, an unconscious enemy over his shoulder. Very little of the blood was his own, and as usual, he wasn't even winded.

"Yo. Everyone in one piece?" he said, and they all shouted an affirmative. Sakura inwardly cringed, knowing how loaded his single comment was. He hadn't said outright that they had fucked up and forced him to pick up the slack. Yet. "Good. We'll talk about this later. Let's take this kid home."


	4. Fall, Then Catch

Note: Written for my 30 kisses set, prompt #4 - Our Distance and That Person. I don't own Naruto.

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_I kissed her, and she didn't punch me._

He was waiting for it, too. She was staring at him, her jade eyes wide with what he suspected was shock. As his lips still tingled from the brief contact, his mind supplied him with two particular facts.

_She didn't punch me. Naruto is going to kill me._

It didn't matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop what had started when Naruto had made him remember his own humanity. Once he'd recognized the existence of the one bond he'd never been able to fully sever, new ones quickly began to accumulate and overwhelm him. He had never imagined he would be so close to either of his teammates.

_Don't look at me like that. Don't ask me why. I wanted to try it. I wanted to know how it felt._

It had also never occurred to him that there would be a time when he'd actually _want_ to kiss Sakura. Sai had wondered for the longest time what Naruto admired so much about her - with her bizarre hair, small breasts and massive forehead. She wasn't beautiful in the classic sense - lacking the even proportions, dark lustrous hair and snowy skin he'd always considered to be ideal. She was rough, she clashed, and she sometimes wore expressions more appropriate on an oni; but she undeniably drew the eye.

_She's walking away. Why is she shaking? Stumbling?_

Every successful work of art drew the viewer in. Made them curious. __

Should I go after her?

It wasn't just the curiosity, though. He knew he was meant to replace Uchiha Sasuke within their team. He learned eventually that Sakura had been in love with Sasuke. He also knew he bore a faint resemblance to the former missing-nin, via his dark hair and eyes and refined features. For that reason alone Sakura sometimes glanced at him, and he knew she wanted someone else standing there in his place. __

There. She went in the dango shop.

At first he thought of it as ridiculous and insulting. She was a fool for caring about that traitor. Now that Sasuke was back, six months, and still under house arrest, it irritated him almost to the point of anger. He liked Sakura. He wanted to make any similarity to that Uchiha asshole to himself completely evaporate from her mind.__

She's ignoring me.

Now he'd done something Sasuke was too self-absorbed to even think of doing, while Naruto was so much of an invertebrate, that he hadn't gotten past the hand-holding stage with her. It had been so easy, too. Sai allowed himself to feel smug for a few moments, and sat down next to her at the table where she was waiting, arms-crossed for her order._  
__  
She's still ignoring me._

They sat in silence, until the server came around and set down a plate of syrupy dumplings in front of her, with a cup of weak tea. He waited until she had the cup in her hand and leaned close, half-whispering, "I've read it only gets better with practice." Watching the blood rush to her face was supremely entertaining.__

Her eyes are on fire.  
  
"I'm dating Naruto, Sai," she said, her voice tight. "He. Will. Murder. You."__

She has no make-up on, again.

He shrugged. "Not if you dump him."__

Her nails look like shit.

"I don't want to dump him," she said, picking up a skewered dumpling and popping it in her mouth, chewing loudly.__

Her manners are as bad as Naruto's.

"You didn't punch me through the wall back there. Why?" he asked, as he held her gaze, and leaned in close enough for his nose to brush her ear. __

I want her.


	5. Monogamous

A/N: This is prompt #5 - Hey, you know... from my 30 kisses set. I do not own Naruto.

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"Haaai!" With a thud, Sakura's foot connected with his right side. Reeling back and bruised, Sai managed to shake off the hit. She came at him again faster, kicking up dirt behind her feet. He ducked, jumped and scrambled for cover from her advance.

The field was nothing but rocks and short shrubs, and he looked at the tall treetops beyond the fence with longing. He had to get back on the offensive and fast. Sai didn't have to have use ink jutsus to fight, but this kind of stripped down practice, no weapons, no accouterments beyond the scant clothes they wore, reminded him of how dangerous it was to depend on one technique alone.

Right from the start of this session, Sakura began demonstrating that she'd made great effort towards improving her taijutsu. It was a little disconcerting. He'd been gone for a month, in a southern province doing what he did best; spying and relaying information, and ending the life of a person who was becoming a nuisance to the Godaime.

He watched her take a stance different than the ones she usually used. Yes, Sakura had been very busy while he was gone. She'd been training with someone new.

Even her muscle tone was improved. An odd thought crossed his mind as he got himself into position to try to push her back. He wished he could see her stripped down, just moving, and study the way the light played over the planes and curves of her body.

Maybe she'd let him take some photographs later.

The ground shook as she nailed the spot he'd just been crouching with a balled fist. Somersaulting and wiping sweat from his face with a bare forearm, Sai wondered who else it was she was working out with.

His first suspect, just from the way the style of her movements had changed, was Rock Lee. Sakura was a practical and efficient person, and when she made up her mind to do something, it was natural she'd go to the person or place that could teach her the most about what it was she wanted to learn - be it the library or the Hokage.

Still, he wondered why she'd gone to someone besides her own teacher. Tsunade-hime was known to be a taijutsu expert. He realized that it was Sakura's own business how she chose to improve herself, and she'd made an excellent choice if she really was training with Gai-sempai's prodigy. Any man who could hold the field with Hyuuga Neji and had given the Kazekage a hard time and lived to tell about it, had Sai's respect.

It was disturbing to realize that he was going to have to work harder, or soon she was going to be out of his league. Sakura wasn't handicapped nearly as much as he was when his weapons were removed, his ink, his scrolls. They hadn't reached a point in their sparring where he was willing to use one of his last-ditch techniques, but he was losing his concentration.

He jumped back from her and made the time-out sign with his hands, and she skidded out of her advance, the aggression sliding from her face, replaced with raised eyebrows and gritted teeth.

Sakura got in his face, looking him over for injuries she might not have accounted for. "What's happened? It's only been half an hour."

"You've been training with someone else," he said.

She shrugged. "I train with a lot of other nin, just like you do. I've been training with the rest of our team, too."

"You've gotten better since the last time, though. I like it." He noticed the color rise on her sweat-sheened face. Interesting.

"Oh. Well, I was with Kakashi and Naruto, watching Team Gai go through some matches a few weeks ago, and Lee and Ten Ten called me over to join them, so I did. Then Lee and I paired off, so I had him show me a few things and it went well. So, now I've been doing some extra training with him."

"I see. Are you having sex with him?" If she was, it might cut into his time with her, which was undesirable, considering how they had celebrated his return.

Sakura made an ugly face and punched him in the shoulder, though not nearly hard as she could have. "No, you idiot. Why would I?"

"I don't mind. As long as we can still do it and you don't give me a STD." He didn't expect her to be celibate when either of them could be sent out for weeks or months at a time with little warning.

It occurred to him that this was a topic they hadn't discussed before, and he might have been making some assumptions, which according to one of the books he'd read, was a bad thing to do in relationships. In Root, attachments were discouraged, and emotions were forbidden. Sex was very different when he didn't care who he was with, as long as he got off and got rid of the urge.

Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, like a fish. "For the record, I'm monogamous, and I'm pretty sure Lee is going to be a virgin the rest of his life," she said, her voice pitched high and perhaps a little too loud.

Sai laughed. "Lee's not a virgin." He'd seen the pictures.

"You did not just say that. Don't say anymore I don't want to know how you know."

She was so odd about some things. Her friend Ino would be asking for details. "I don't know what the big deal is, he's of legal age. You make it sound like it's strange that he would be sexually experienced."

"I said I didn't want to know." Sakura was holding out her hand in front of her and shaking her head.

"If you're monogamous, does that mean you want me to be the same?" It seemed like the sort of thing that was suitable for enriching their bond.

Her eyes went as wide as they could go. She was very expressive today. "You've been sleeping around?"

He noticed the vein pop up in her forehead and her arm draw back, and he realized he might be in danger. For some reason his mouth kept going. "No." The opportunity hadn't presented itself. "But I didn't realize you have feelings on the subject."

"Feelings? About wanting my boyfriend not to sleep with other people? Yeah, I might have some feelings about that, Sai!" Her voice had become downright shrill. He dodged, as her temper passed the boiling point, and she made to punch him.

He took her action as the signal that they were on again. He let her come at him, still angry, knowing that when she got like this she didn't pull her punches, but her moves were easier to predict. After a few feints, and Sakura pulverizing the ground into gravel, he managed to sweep her legs out from under her. She flipped as she fell, grabbed his shirt and pulled him down with her, hard on the uneven ground.

They rolled a few times, and instead of headbutting him like she could have when they stopped and he had her pinned down, she leaned up and pressed her mouth to his, and kissed him until he let her arms free so he could get a better angle.

Eventually they sat up, and while he brushed dirt and rocks off his knees, she leaned in close to him and said, almost in a whisper, "Hey, you know, if I found out you were with someone else all this time, you'd be on the way to the hospital right now. Right?


	6. The Mess We're In

A/N: I do not own Naruto. For 30 kisses prompt #9 - Dash

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"I hate you! I never want to look at you or your shitty art ever again!" The brushes and paint pots made a satisfying crash and clatter, as she upset them from his worktable with the back of her arm.

"Sakura-" Sai grasped at her, and got a handful of shirt and then a grip on her flesh.

"You don't get it do you?" she said, prying his hand off her shoulder. "You can't get it. You're useless Sai, you're broken and I can't fix it. I fucking tried. I tried to believe you were something more underneath that dead fish face of yours."

"Listen to me," he said, chasing behind her to the door, and she still wasn't sure if he had raised his voice or if it just sounded too loud.

She wouldn't look at him, and see that maybe desperation and possible fear. "Oh did that register? Did that hit the bottom of that empty well you call a heart? Why should I listen anymore?"

"Why the fuck am I always the one who's wrong? Do you think I wanted it to happen this way?"

"Yes I do. It's easier to not have to care. You play dumb so well, too, you manipulative fuck. I can't believe I fell for it." Must leave now, don't look back, don't look him in the eyes, there's nothing there, don't look him in the eyes.

"It was never like that!" That impossible note in his voice again, like she'd launched a kunai right into his gut. Sai didn't have feelings. Sai had practiced expressions and copied responses and fake fake fake smiles.

"I don't believe you. Not after this. You can't tell me you didn't know. You knew and you knew how I'd feel about it and what I'd do. You knew and you played by the rules because you can't think for yourself, you can't feel or think or say a damn thing without someone leading you by the nose."

"I can think for myself," he said, sounding particularly offended at that accusation as she let it fly, and he got between her and the door. She wanted to laugh, and and cry and claw his damn eyes out.

"What? Did I hurt your fucking feelings? I doubt it. There are insects in my garden with more feelings than you. I'm done."

He was still standing in her way.

"Move it before I have to expend chakra, Sai, because I'm not going to be gentle." she growled.

Something snapped in the air between them, and Sakura felt his fist connect with her face, the same second she applied her knee to his groin. He pulled her down with him as he fell and her head and shoulder hit the floorboards hard, though she heard his forehead connect with a thud.

Sai was facedown sprawled half across her, as she scrabbled to get him in a proper hold, pinning his upper body with an elbow against the back of his neck while his legs locked her hips down. Sakura knew she could really, really hurt him right now. All she had to do was shoot a surge of chakra down his spine, and he wouldn't be able to move again for hours.

He knew he was helpless. He wasn't letting go.

She shuddered, deep within, sucking her breath in with a sound just short of a sob and all of her muscles lost their strength. She fell back, arms flopping down limp against the wood, and she looked into his night-black eyes as he lifted his head from her chest and pushed himself up far enough for her to see the bloody, purple-edged gash on his forehead.

Sakura waited for him to flinch when the tears finally overflowed and dribbled into her ears. He didn't. He wasn't Sasuke. He wasn't Naruto. He was Sai and he had his own set of rules. She wanted to beat him until his face was an unrecognizable pulp.

"They already sent a team out after her. You'll just get in the way," he said, with that half-dead, doll-eyed stare he had, his mouth drawn thin. His face was still flushed like it had been perfectly painted, washed in watercolor. A line of blood trailed a path down to the side of his nose from his forehead as if to remind her he was not a mannequin.

"Go fuck yourself."

His eyelids lowered slightly. "Having sexual intercourse with bunshins is against Ninja Code statute #52," Sai said, with no hint of humor or irony in his tone. It was flat like his feelings, like his understanding of her hurt.

At another time, in another situation Sakura would have laughed, thinking that maybe he understood straight-man humor, or that it was funny that that was the first thing that came to his mind. Now she knew it was an attempt to rationalize the irrational, to make sense of her, of the part of the world that wasn't as simple as go kill this, go steal that, or draw that thing over there.

She glared up at him, and unable to help herself any longer, healed the wound. Sakura wished she had Ino's abilities, so she could implant in his head some understanding of just how much she hated that she had ever let him touch her. This was too hard, too complicated and he could only ever have the shallowest comprehension of what love was supposed to be. Why was she still here? Why had she ever come back?

"I'm sorry," he said, and brushed his mouth against her forehead, and got up.

Sakura folded herself up, her head in her hands and sobbed, listening to him clean up the swath of his floor that was covered in art supplies that she had dashed from the table with a sweep of her arm.

Even if Ino came home safe, Sakura would still be angry, and Sai would still be hopeless. She reached for the doorknob and dragged herself up, and didn't look back as she closed the door behind her.


End file.
